The Min­istry of Health has con­firmed two ad­di­tion­al cas­es of malar­ia in the same ge­o­graph­ic lo­ca­tion in South Trinidad where five cas­es were pre­vi­ous­ly re­port­ed. This brings the to­tal num­ber of con­firmed malar­ia cas­es for 2025 to sev­en.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the Min­istry of Health, the new­ly iden­ti­fied cas­es were de­tect­ed through on­go­ing en­hanced sur­veil­lance ef­forts, led by the In­sect Vec­tor Con­trol Di­vi­sion (IVCD). These ac­tiv­i­ties are part of the Min­istry’s broad­er pro­to­cols for the pre­ven­tion and con­trol of malar­ia.

The Min­istry stat­ed that malar­ia is not en­dem­ic to Trinidad and To­ba­go. Be­tween 2015 and 2024, there were 153 con­firmed cas­es na­tion­wide—an av­er­age of 15 cas­es per year—most of which were im­port­ed or in­tro­duced.

Malar­ia is a vec­tor-borne in­fec­tious dis­ease caused by Plas­mod­i­um par­a­sites and trans­mit­ted through the bite of the fe­male Anophe­les mos­qui­to, which typ­i­cal­ly bites at night. The Min­istry clar­i­fied that un­like dengue, chikun­gun­ya, and Zi­ka—which are vi­ral in­fec­tions trans­mit­ted by the Aedes mos­qui­to—malar­ia is not caused by a virus, and the Aedes species is not the pri­ma­ry vec­tor.

Ear­ly symp­toms of malar­ia in­clude fever, chills, headaches, and fa­tigue, typ­i­cal­ly ap­pear­ing with­in 10 to 15 days af­ter be­ing bit­ten by an in­fect­ed mos­qui­to. The Min­istry urges mem­bers of the pub­lic who ex­pe­ri­ence these symp­toms to seek im­me­di­ate med­ical at­ten­tion.

High-risk groups, such as those liv­ing near forest­ed ar­eas, farm­ers, hunters, pro­tec­tive ser­vices per­son­nel op­er­at­ing in these ar­eas, hik­ers, and en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists, are ad­vised to take the fol­low­ing pre­cau­tions:

Wear long-sleeved, loose-fit­ting, and light-coloured cloth­ing

Use mos­qui­to nets while sleep­ing

Ap­ply in­sect re­pel­lents and use mos­qui­to coils or va­por­is­ers when ap­plic­a­ble

The Min­istry of Health af­firms its con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to pub­lic health through ac­tive dis­ease sur­veil­lance and vec­tor con­trol ini­tia­tives.